Exit westwards from sorry mess

"By moving we are sending a message that we need to go back to our roots. We need to be where the voters are" ... Sam Dastyari, Labor's state secretary. Photo: Dean Sewell

'Tis the season for politicians to go away and leave the rest of us in peace at least until Australia Day, but they show no sign of doing so. Stunt politics blunders along as ever, all tinsel and no tree.

Labor's decision to quit its infamous headquarters at Sussex Street in Chinatown and set up camp somewhere in Sydney's west is a gesture of sorts. ''By moving we are sending a message that we need to go back to our roots. We need to be where the voters are,'' said the state secretary, Sam Dastyari, exuding cheery optimism from every pore.

Good luck, Sam. ''Sending a message'' is one of those teeth-grindingly irritating cliches that politicians trot out for media sound bites. Dastyari could no doubt send more folksy messages to the proletariat by parading in Blundstone boots, tatts and a hard hat, driving up and down Mulgoa Road, Penrith, in a Toyota HiLux with tradies' tool boxes and a cattle dog in the back. But it would do nothing to lift the stench from Labor politics in this state.

The Left's public apology for shoe-horning the odious Ian ''Sir Lunchalot'' Macdonald into state Parliament had a little more grit to it, belated though it was. We shall see if the Right does the same for having sponsored Eddie Obeid's rise to greatness, although I won't hang by the thumbs waiting. The guiding genius behind that exercise was none other than Graham Richardson.

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When a Labor seat became available in the Legislative Council in 1991, many in the party wanted it to go to Graham Freudenberg, the much-loved Labor historian and speechwriter to Gough Whitlam and Neville Wran. To his lasting shame, Richardson, then a senator but still the kingmaker of the NSW Right, kiboshed Freudy on the grounds that he was ''erratic''. He shoved the oily and ingratiating Obeid into the slot instead, ostensibly to bring business acumen to the party and caucus. And business acumen they most certainly got, though perhaps not the sort that even Good Ol' Richo might have envisaged.

John Faulkner's latest call for root and branch reform of the ALP makes sound good sense, as he always does, but it will wither and die in the factional wilderness. Only the nuclear option from the Independent Commission Against Corruption will bring the party to its wits, probably around next winter.

Meanwhile, never to be outdone in stunt politics, Tony Abbott has been ostentatiously driving a truck along the Pacific Highway somewhere up north. I have not bothered to find out where or why; something to do with road funding, I suppose. There is no end to this man's facile gimmickry. If the Tories wanted to fix the Pacific Highway, they had 11 years of the Howard government to do it.

MY WIFE and I took our son to the Opera House this week for a kiddies' prom performance of that old favourite 'Twas The Night Before Christmas.

You can imagine how shocked we were to see a Muslim family sneaking quietly into the audience. Dad had one of those frizzy underslung beards, mum was in a hijab, and their two little girls danced along to Away in A Manger and the like. I could hardly believe it: there they were, Islamics barging their way into our Christian, Aussie way of life as if they belonged here. Worse, they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

My first thought was to ring Alan or Ray to report this sinister behaviour but they were already off air. So urgent questions remain. Did Opera House security search these people before they were allowed into our world-famous icon? They could well have been terrorists, carrying concealed weapons or a bomb to wreak havoc. How do we know they weren't illegals who had slipped ashore from some people smuggler's boat that very morning?

True, they spoke flawless Australian English but that's the sort of cunning trick you'd expect. Next thing you know they'll want to assimilate like the Italians and Greeks and Vietnamese have done, and then where will we be?

We should also check what is happening with the Christmas tree at Bankstown Square this year. When I was on radio, there were angry talkback calls each December complaining that the tree had been made smaller and less conspicuous so as not to offend Muslim shoppers. The management denied it, of course, but the thing may well have disappeared altogether by now. Do let me know. Otherwise, please look up the words ''irony'' and ''satire'' in the dictionary.

Speaking of the Middle East, the usual Israel lobbyists have been all over the media defending Bibi Netanyahu's decision to throw up more illegal settlements on the West Bank. While they're at it, I would be interested to hear their explanation of a recent remark from Israel's Interior Minister, Eli Yishai.

''We must blow Gaza back to the Middle Ages, destroying all the infrastructure including roads and water,'' he said last month. Yishai is from the right-wing Shas party whose spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, is notorious for a sermon in 2010 proclaiming that ''the sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews … that is why Gentiles were created''. Any takers?

ADDING to the fun of a federal election next year we have a royal baby to look forward to. The women's magazines and blogs are in a lather of excitement, as if such magic had never happened before.

This will get ever more frenzied as the months roll on. In the absence of any news there will be torrents of fanciful nonsense shamelessly dressed up as fact and attributed, in the customary way, to ''palace sources'' or ''friends of the royal couple''.

Already there is huge excitement over the choice of names for the wee mite, traditional versus modern. I am hoping for a Jakksyn or a Kaiden if it's a boy, although an old-new combo might work: James spelt Jaymz, for instance.

Girls' names are trickier. Maddison, Ashleigh, Breanna and Rhyannon in all their variations have been done to death, so new thinking is required. I came across a Bacardee the other day, which has possibilities. But best of all I like Kadance, a quite stunning newie from, yes, Queensland. Now there's a name fit for a princess.